October 10, 2014

I have a weird habit to torture myself. Visiting trade shows and shops in various countries seeing all those great products, I could've asked makers to send stuffs by post or email, but I always choose to carry all those papers and catalogues. Once I carried them with rounds and rounds of swearing throughout the days and lots of shoulder and body pain, everything became more important and some became treasures. I'm not sure if it is healthy or not, sometimes the habit gets to you in other forms, like fighting unnecessary battles against sick capitalistic minds around you.

The torture extends to everyday carry (EDC) stuff too, in addition to my Macbook, I carry way too much in many's standard. But if there is just one beautiful capture, be it an image, a drawing, an idea, on any typical day, it would give me tremendous pleasure.

Is it necessary? Is it because I'm too insecure to let go of things I love? I'd love to know your opinions.

(An opened TN I captured tonight at home. I was inviting people to post their opened TN in the Traveler's Notebook Hong Kong User Group on facebook. If your body carries a soul, your notebook should carry your mind)

(9 books I've recently listened. I was either curious, looking for self-assurance, to be inspired or trying to escape from reality(

Anyways, my therapy is mostly done through spending lone time sorting my mind through, or listening to audiobooks during transit. I'd be interested in knowing how others are doing it too.

September 24, 2014

We human beings all search for what speaks our mind through all sorts of medium isn't it? Be it an art installation, a photograph, a painting, an article or even a simple desk arrangement; our bodily tools are so limiting simple language, gestures and facial expressions just don't seem to convey enough essence and importance of what our minds have been going through (alright poor English here, maybe it is suffice to say "don't seem to do the justice"). We need the medium viewer to go through similar torture or spend the similar amount of energy, to convey just a bit more, which is fantastic, immensely more liberating and interesting than just hearing the shorten form "I'm sad", BECAUSE there is always beauty springing off from these attempts.

(Faber-Castell Ondoro Smoke Oat fountain pen weighs 42 grams. Beautiful contrast of wood and chrome materials. The only thing I am uneasy of this pen is the "hollow" feeling when it is in use, perhaps due to wood's lower density, every stroke to me generates an echo. Oh "Echo", I may like a pen which echos me indeed, I do)

The tools creating these medium, your hands for an art installation, your camera to create an image, your brush to create those strokes, your pen to flow ideas into an article, we too search for those perfect object-mates, but are we ever sure we have found the perfect match? Same goes, the beauty lies in the attempts. Through attempts you discover yourselves, through attempts you discover what's not, and through attempts you find …. beauty!

(My postman says Kaweco SketchUp 5.6 weighs 45 grams. Just the right weight to spill my idea/graphite onto paper, fingers act as lever to amplify my slight pressure increase from the wrist to produce just enough darkness and width. There is even a sharpener at the back cap. I will probably not be able to finish the graphite until another cool and better one comes along though)

So do lust for your perfect pen or camera, coz it is a noble attempt, but when you are able to find one true love, all the properties don't matter anymore.

(I bought a vegie bag while I was in Tokyo two weeks ago, perfect to host my Traveler's Notebook and Leica M240 inside with great accessibility. Yes I'm afraid my treasures are accesible to theives too. Yes the straps are not for human men. Yes camera and paper are susceptible to rain drops. No, I could not refuse the urge to pull them out every single moment when I experience something new in the trip)

(I had fun to disassemble an iStick, which is great for transferring files between computers and iPhone/iPad, vice versa. Reason to disassemble: I hate the plastic cover and found a way to enclose it into leather. During the attempt, I found a robot cuteness from its core and had some fun attaching my Lego C3PO parts onto it, yup miniature coffee and Traveler's Notebook included)

September 15, 2014

Imagine flying on a plane looking at my stationery landscape from high above. Beautiful song by Dimitri From Paris featuring Pink Martini. Yup, I was busy flying around HK/Shanghai/Japan/Korea lately. Next trips to Shanghai/Korea in October. Sorry, I'm so slow in my blog, but rest assure the instagram feed is the best place to tag on my journeys.

Why I did this update? I needed to slow down and turned down going out on Sunday, listening to Jazz radio and dwelling in these beautiful landscapes. So beautiful I had to make a video and bring everybody with me flying for just one minute.

Then all hell broke loose, there are so many stories behind each piece of treasure, I am to write just a little bit here after.

Something annoyed me for a long while, right behind my desk there is this window I hate. Normally I love windows, this one, landlord decided to replace a broken air conditioner with one that must be sealed onto the window, somehow the contractor had to glue the whole thing and the window couldn't be turned open anymore. The heat, the vibration noise, arghhhh, I couldn't even install a curtain anymore, my desktop monitor would be impossible to look at during day time. Anyways, I faced the same problem today, kid just gave me a solution which I never thought of. I got some nice Norens (Japanese fabric dividers) bought from Traveler's Factory and ITOYA, and we just clipped them onto the window and it was almost a perfect day. Beautiful Japanese design. Vibration still goes on, but it is alreay a lot better.

A few days ago, as usual I got pissed off with vague empty monkey ideas which everybody seems to have opinions about how to realize but none could specify exactly how. I could "let it go", but my problem is I couldn't bear such ugly outcome if I were not getting my hands dirty. Luckily I have the experience using SketchUp for close to 10 years now, I found a crack of time and I had to specify it clearly.

Got me into thinking: physical form follows function, conceptual form follows intentions. Yes design is an iteration process, building something starts from fulfilling function with form, great designs infiltrate aesthetics and intentions into the form in the process. Most people forget that the most important aspect of customer experience is YOUR intention, how is that being designed. Losing focus on that, you get a piece of junk sitting around doing nothing.

Got me into thinking: form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Buddhist's word.

Got me into recalling: "Who? Who is but the form following the fuction of what and what I am is a man in a mask". V for Vendetta.

Back to stationery. I usually use my Kaweco SketchUp 5.6 for rough draft, Rotring 800+ (which has a nice twist and hide mechanism to protect the needle head and a nice stylus tip, got it from ITOYA a week ago in addition to my Rotring 800) for finer lines drawn on my Traveler's Notebook. Then I move on to SketchUp for simulation in exact measurement.

Which lead me into another project, a space to be created in a new store coming up in December, for gathering with customers having fun together, once in a while with interesting exhibitions. I can't be fully involved but according to some, this space is important to my departments, so if I don't specify it will go astray to my dismay. Then there was this Saturday afternoon having fun and deeper discussion with partner Out of Stock. What interests me is that picking people's brain trying to integrate and elevate something satisfies me immensely.

Got me into thinking: what's the most common pattern in nature? I was thinking of honeycomb hexagon when designing flexible tables, allowing multiple arrangements and collapsable for storage. Turned out there is no such thing as "the most common", there are variety of patterns in nature, spirals, fractuals, chaos, waves, etc. Thank God I have this wondering journey of discovery and linkage back to my science education, which is mostly an intellectual process I enjoy most for the work I do.

Which leads us back in time for a week when I was in Tokyo/Osaka. It was a 7 days travel to visit trade show, meet suppliers and explore places and spaces. At one point I sat down in a nice cafe in Nakazakicho (中崎町), Osaka, which is a really nice area with small shops and cafes. I thought of my extremity being in certain roles at one time but completely another roles in other times crossing disciplines, it felt almost unbearable having my personality and skills split into compartments, unable to manage it I would become a mad man getting nowhere. How to simplify such management was the thought in that very cafe.

Got me into a thought experiment: Can't just be a lighthouse in a tea cup, able to show direction but knowing just that and in a small world. Can't just be an explorer seeing so much there is no place to berth and share what I see into the future. Can't be both at the same time either. What I need to become? Need to be fluid-like waveform and become Schrödinger's cat, observe me I'm a lighthouse, observe me again I'm an explorer. Can I master this meta personality? I have a long way to go.

(Flannagan, Osaka)

Alright Osaka was fun, I wish I stopped by Kyoto instead but it was a rush decision. I thought I hadn't been there for 5 years so I wanted to see what was changed. Visited 15 stores, two most loved ones are Flannagan and Standard Bookstore. Despite unable to communicate in English, staff at Flannagan tried very hard to explain everything I asked. It has no big difference than the last time I visited, but this time I asked more. Except Meister Tools Pen, which is from Japan, all of their products are imported from Europe/USA. The most recent import was from Russia, a 350 yen 2.0 lead mechanical pencil with a sharpener cap, an attractive deal.

(Standard Bookstore)

Standard Bookstore was relaxing to read, to grab stationery and to have a nice cup of coffee. I got a Apartamento magazine and a book called True Portland. Spent more than the usual time to walk around the stationery and lifestyle product sections and of course a cup of coffee in their cafe. There is a certain rawness in it, kind of organized un-neatly yet organized and motivates a sense of discovery. It is a perfect place to spend an entire day, we need these spaces.

(Trans-Lankhe)

Oh there is another place I stumbled upon, a home/interior shop called Trans-Lankhe, close to Flannagan. I feel that this is a shop managed by Dulton, a brand I love a lot, but I'm not sure. I love their cabinets, far-sight eyeglasses, small things like wooden trays and clips as well as those cans and accessories.

(Doutor Coffee, working on Chronodex planning 5 people's schedule for the next day)

Back further before visiting Osaka, it was almost all business and meetings in Tokyo, except in small chunks of time when I was in Doutor Coffee, ITOYA and Angers.

(ITOYA, Ginza, Tokyo)

ITOYA, ITOYA! I lost a lot of blood over there, it is a family in stationery business I admire a lot. There are intentions and histories there. Yup, you can spend a full day there and it is not enough. Currently their original building is still under re-construction hopefully seeing light into opening in 2015, a temporary building is used but you still get a full 7-8 floors full of stationery, an annex close by called K.ITOYA hosts finer selections of fountain pens, art supplies and study room essentials. Be prepared to die in this heaven, I got a wooden pencase called AvanWood there, well and many other stuffs too, its a poison.

(Angers in KITTE Marunouchi, Tokyo)

Angers originates from Kyoto since 1993, it is one of the stores with stronger intentions you can tell from product selection and merchandise mix, things are right beside each other for reasons, unlike Loft and Hands which are more commercially oriented and you would have no interest to find out who's behind them (they are still far superior than many Western stationery businesses IMHO), Angers shows telltale signs in every corner. To put it simply, signage speaks character, as to what character you can perceive from the store, you just have to visit it.

(Traveler's Factory, Terminal 1, Narita Airport, Tokyo)

Oh of course there is the Traveler's Factory in Narita Airport. This time I brought two colleagues to see it, every corner of the store speaks of details. You know all the signages there were painted by hands from the original designer, factory only products, rubber stamps, etc all guarantee a few hours of stay even though it is a tiny shop comparing to the flagship factory shop in Meguro.

Why TN is loved by so many? In addition to the flexibility for customization, the leather, the paper etc, I will tell you why: Serendipity. It's a long story by itself of where this TN movement came from, it is other long stories of how things evolved around my life with it. Simply said, I met a lot of friends from around the world because of it, you too have to step out of your zone and meet other users, it changes your perspectives and I mean it.

(mini meet-up in Tokyo with Shigeru and Rocketman, together with Suzuki and Rita)

For a while, Mr. Shigeru follows my instagram and I thought he only plays Ukulele, nothing to do with stationery or TN. Then this July I saw his feed showing Traveler's Factory Narita in construction as well as Designphil's booth construction in time lapsed video, I got curious and asked if he is involved in the same industry. Turned out he is a contractor for Designphil helping to build these things and he has been a TN user for many years. Alright, let's come out when I visit in Sep I said, then dispite the language barrier we met in Nonbei Yokocho for a drink, together with my visiting colleagues. Then Rocketman joined all of a sudden, I knew him only on Flickr liking his photos and he is actually a TN user too, he is probably uploading the most TN photos to the Flickr group and what a surprise I could finally meet him in person. Rocketman sings in a hobby band, catalogs his meals meticulously on his TN, loves photography just like me and tries to visit new places every year.

Aren't we all connected? Yes but if you are connected to people just on the net and never met any one of them, you missed a lot. There are so much more in each of us that's worth sharing and peeking.

(mini meet-up with Traveler's Notebook Korean users)

Each TN is a conversation starter. Last year I had a great time visiting Korea to join a TN user gathering and we couldn't have enough. So far, users in Korea are way more willing to show and share their TN usage than people in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This year I visited Seoul again for business but at the end of the last day my friend and business partner Mr. Shin said we should head back to his office for discussion, alright we were tired but no problem, a few more hours of hard work will pay off. Turned out it was a surprise gathering with familiar and new faces! I was so happy despite being tired. We swapped TNs to see what's happening lately to each other and how each one added personal touches to their TNs, be it customization or usage.

Who they are? Mathematics teacher in University, fashion industry mercahndiser, fountain pen fanatic with a background in theoratical physics, tour guide, fine art student etc. See the diversity and how everyone enjoys sharing? I learned a lot too.

One unexpected nice gift was from a fine art student who painted in very fine lines my avator onto a TN refill!

Earlier this year, Voloymyr from Ukraine came to Hong Kong travelling with family, we knew each other briefly on facebook only but when he said he was going to leave Hong Kong the next day, I couldn't resist to come out very late a night just to catch up chatting with him. I wondered what is happening in Ukraine, how he can spend 6 months working and then 6 months of vacation with family year after year, etc etc. Stories and life diversity again and again. Well, he didn't really go away, he left for Indonesia with family and filled up 128 pages of his TN and came back to Hong Kong for yet another brief meet up. Amazing, he is back to Ukraine now, hopefully I will meet him again.

August this year, I was in Shanghai for a brief stay to help set up our ¬ [DESKBOUND] campaign (I would love to tell you more about this but maybe later). On the last day I was carrying my luggage walking around the campaign area for a final glimpse, "Breeze in May" came and poking here and there in the TN zone, I was trying to answer her questions as much as possible in such short time. She finally became a TN user, at this moment I think she is working on her USA vacation itinerary on TN :)

I met many new users in Hong Kong too! During the ¬ [DESKBOUND] campaign in Hong Kong in early August, I brought my Kingsley machine to Times Square for a pop-up event, helping customers to emboss their TN with gold foil. A family from Singapore, a secretary, a TN couple, etc etc. We are going to have a great meet-up in Hong Kong soon I promise! How about December when there is a new space we can use?

(¬ [DESKBOUND] event in city'super, Times Square, Hong Kong)

(a sample TN I drew on the cover with gold acrylic for display)

Alright, I'm writing too long and heading nowhere. Before wrapping up, let me give you a little tip on TN.

If you have bought the brass index clip, have you ever wonder how other people are using it so that it won't fall off from the edge? I did. Here's a simple solution for you, just tape the back of the clip onto the page with masking tape, that's it. Masking tapes are easily removable and you can relocate the index clip very easily. Securing the clip using masking tape also helps to prevent excessible movement of the index clip which can easily damage the paper on the edge. Good tip eh?

Finally, back to the Stationery Landscape topic. I travel relatively more than other people, yet I feel seriously not enough coz most of my trips are on very tight business schedule, leaving me not much time to explore with people and places. But life is like that isn't it? Not enough not enough not enough, when can we start to enjoy more? Let's steal time, find cracks, take moral advantages and be explorers meeting new people and making new friends on those common landscapes, I'm sure through that, we can be lighthouses to other people once in a while.

If you have reached this far of this blog post hahahah, its time to go back to the video and enjoy that one minute fly over with me once again, over the stationery landscape of mine.

January 07, 2013

Scription has been very slow in the past year of 2012. I thought situation at work would become smoother but it didn't. Simply opening too many stores too fast, losing important connection between sourcing and customer wants/needs. In addition to under staff situation in my departments, I had a lot of tedious problems to tackle for developing new stores in Shanghai. That left me essentially no time in cultivating people and projects at work, let alone my own Chronodex adventure. 2012 was a very tiring year.

I did managed to stop by a few nice places during my business trips, which is like Shanghai every month, such as Le Jardin Secret (秘密花園) restuarant, A Room which is a nice cafe flooded with vintage stuffs and GZ cafe which the owner is always there to chat with.

(Shanghai airport lounge)

(Shanghai airport: roof window looks like leaves from certain angles)

I did managed to steal time, like I said before, to do something I like in small chunks of time too, but that's not too fulfilling and I always feel like missing a lot of things. Like bringing personal projects to business trip hoping I could work on them in hotel but eventually too tired to do so, like I needed to organize ideas floating around but there was never a quiet moment I could use productively. Despite what you think apparently, I myself feel like losing myself bits and pieces here and there. 2013 new year resolution? Be smarter.

Smarter! Like forget about Apple's Map, use Baidu in China once and for all. For the rest of the world, Google Map rocks. Yup, Apple led somebody in Australia to a dessert, it led me to a wrong building too. Not smart to roll out an app like that. Not smart when you don't know you are not ready for it (I'm reminding myself).

(Sensu brush is the best stylus I've ever found! Writing with it on iPad is effortless, not to mention the amazing low friction digital painting in apps like Paper)

(Words notebook: made in USA, carefully chosen paper and ink, size the same as Moleskine Cahier, unique system of notation for tasks and bullets. Fountain pen will bleed through pages, finer rollerballs, pencils and ballpoints are perfect. I would say it is the tasks/bullets version of Field Notes)

(Varacil mechanical pencil PUZZLE, HK$108 kind of challenging to finish, but it is our 2012 Xmas TOP seller! 砌死人嘅鉛蕊筆)

As for product reviews in 2012, I believe I did nothing at all. Did managed to post some pictures with short comments on Instagram/Twitter feed, but no analysis and comparison, zero. Well, Scription is not about product reviews afterall, I am sure you trust what I share here or on Instagram/Twitter has some points of interest. Maybe I filtered too much, should have revealed a little more.

(Kaweco props for retail display: sick and tired of data analysis and fighting against biased opinions on that day, so I played with tihngs on my table for a few minutes)

(Frame and lenses: I was just posting something I stare at for a long time, bet they are pleasing in some ways, to you too)

(Headphones and cameras cleaning day of the year)

Yes I posted porns on my feeds too, judging from the responds I get, I figured people really don't mind. I hope in between these porns, you can see tibits of my life and practise perhaps something good will come out of the sharing.

Oh meeting people in 2012 was fun, great fun. I took the liberty to further disrupt my work boundaries and went to Tainan University of Technology sharing my retail experience, hope I had inspired some students there. They are very polite and teachers are super friendly, I appreciate the opportunity. I also went to a forum to speak to dozens of secondary school students in Hong Kong, sharing thoughts about creating a sustainable campaign for their Chinese New Year projects. I love sharing, which is part of my very own learning, I just hope I can have more time to do that in our industry as well.

November 10, 2012

Oh BTW, I stole some time last night to execute an idea of woodenizing my beloved Canon F1n.

Not proud of it yet, coz I was just peeling off old fake leather from the macine and applied decal sticker on certain parts. I don't know what you call this obsession of natural materials (leather, wood, etc), those stuffs please me and calm me like no other. Someday I'm gonna grab some real thin wood veneer to make it authentic.

Canon F1n is such a heavy full brass machine, sick to carry for a long time, but I guess the emotion for me loving it originated from my youth. No money, no taste, just love the idea of taking photos, some classmate made it to acquire an F1. I was "just" hanging on with my 120 Yashica. Took me years later to get my very own F1n.

What then? Treasure what I've already have or lust after Leica M? Same as lusting after hundreds of masking tapes, the important thing is what you do with these objects. Tresend yourself form object lust and free yourself from endless chase of equipment, AND enjoy the serendipity of not having those things in the timing you desired. Having said that, I still want a Leica M :)

What? My Instagram follower @ditzy_klutz said he/she is up to 700pcs of masking tape collection! Talking about obsession and world record. Anybody can top that? True, you never know when to stop lusting.

And tonight I went to a beautiful music performance by Hong Kong Philharmonic in the New Central Harbourfront grassland. The final piece was a feature of firework demonstration with Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks.

Heading for business trip for the next week, gotta update you what's been going on diligently.

October 25, 2012

My world has become smaller in 2012. Well, everybody's world is, when we became so connected through the net, we know things instantly across the globe. In another sense, my world dwindled quite a lot due to long and gruesome projects at work. Makes me wonder what "small" really means.

I've cancelled quite a few sourcing trips due to various reasons, all somehow points to the fact that I'm part of some ill conceived and badly executing projects. My world is smaller, I became smaller, couldn't allocate enough time on interesting projects like Traveler's Notebook special edition, Invitation of a Japanese stationery commentator to Hong Kong for talk, craft events, etc. I'm pushing quite many limits, including my family's tolerance of my absence. I've also put on hold some of my personal leather projects and stationery production too. In certain context, pushing limits made me even more creative, that was the past. I am currently in the state which I lack energy to fight long battles.

It is obvious I haven't had new instant photos to stick on my photo wall for a long while. Realizing this, I decided to carry my film cameras even more, even though in many instances I was too busy to take even just one shot. Well, at least last week I have two photo booth prints came out from visiting Joyce fashion store in Hong Kong. The booth was there to celebrate Joyce's collaboration with i-D magazine, a Soul i-D Exhibition to be held in Beijing soon. Everybody can just go there and take a cover star i-D portrait.

I didn't do it right for the portrait though, should've winked/covered my right eye. The idea was to portrait a photographer being angried at after he took a photo of a subject and later hurt by the subject.

One of the fun project I participated last Friday was being one of the judges for an instant photo journaling competition called Instant Only. Participants are encouraged to use instant photos like Instax or Polaroid to capture their moments and journal about them. I was amazed by some of the participants' work, the winning entries are obvious despite the organizer's complicated rating system which rendered judges spending long time to mark, I enjoyed reading those journals in those few hours.

Earlier in October I went as usual to Shanghai for a week for work. The happiest time during that trip was a visit to Xing Guang Photographic Equipments shopping arcade (星光摄影器材城), got some nice deals on analog films, including FP3000B to be used with my modified Polaroid 110a.

I managed to join a few colleagues for a day trip to Yangcheng Lake (阳澄湖) for a hairy crab feast! It was just an hour and a half away from Shanghai, not as beautiful as I imagined, but it was a great chance to find some nice photo angles.

Too bad I forgot to bring my Lenspen to clean the lens, some photos had weird shadows when developed. Like this one. I could only give it a proper name to explain: "Soul leaving". The other photo I took of an old lady washing bowl on river side, her face was taken away, too scary to show here.

Thanks to Fujifilm keep rolling out films, FP3000B is great for indoor and out door shots. In many occassions, especially wedding banquets, converted Polaroid camera using FP3000B is a great combo to give out instant photos to friends. Many people have never seen this in action so the peeling apart moment always astonish them.

For those of you who never had hairy crab (大閘蟹) before, it is a delicacy. October and November is the perfect season to try. The benefit of going to the source in Yangcheng Lake instead of buying from the market is that you get to meet the local people there and get a glimpse of their lives. In addition, it costs only RMB 150 per person to have 2 crabs (1 male, 1 female) and 17 dishes shared by 6 people! Great deal!

Many of the 'restaurants' are operated by small families, it is like having lunch in their very own home. You book in advance and drive there, they pick you up from shore using these small boats, arrive their homes and enjoy the feast.

(boat shed)

(old boat)

(boat shed reflection)

We had such a great time. The family's grandparents picked some fresh sugar canes for us as desserts too.

So, gruesome work on ill conceived projects? Gotta enjoy myself a bit more in between, using "small" chunks of time. Now I figured, you fight giants using "small" stones and "small" moves.

June 25, 2012

I'm heading Shanghai tomorrow for 1 week (like every month), so here's an update before I leave.

As usual, my Dad needs your prayer, which has been helpful in many ways. He was admitted to hospital because of fever last week, he shall be fine and come out in a few days, just wish him less painful and more happiness.

Things Organized Neatly is a very nice place to see the beauty of neat arrangement. I hope one day they will post my arrangements. Yesterday I was just thinking about how to effectively carry nothing but a few essential objects yet all of them look beautiful, kind of impossible for tomorrow's travel but a little thought experiement is always pleasing. Carrying my Turtlejacket Tri-Eye on a leather holster worn on cross shoulder leather strap sure got me a lot of attention :) I had a dinner with the guy behind Turtleback last week, they will have some beautiful lenses coming out soon which fit the Tri-Eye. I'm so happy he lusted after my DIY holster the entire time :)

As for the Chronodex self-inking stamp many has been asking for, I nailed the way to keep the wooden cover attached to the body by adding magnets, problem solved. There are still a few adjustments here and there in millimeters, but the outlook is great.

I can't let somebody carry the Chronodex stamp without the most stunning look (in my own terms), so the cover will be laser engraved! Been simulating how it will look for days, I still have a few technical problems to solve on the specification but it won't be long to start production, yay!

My day job is full of excitement to see future products and challenges with people and systems (social and computer), mind boggling to think things through, switching beta and alpha all the time. But I'm glad, the satisfaction is within. Gee I wish I had this new Fisheye Baby 110 camera with me for the trip starting tomorrow, super cute and handy, they didn't let me keep it.

Every year our Managing Director would send out a long email thanking everybody and sum up our achievements, one sentence stood out this year: "we never put 'maximizing sales and profit' our company's core value". I guess he detected an imbalance somehow, so I'm gonna quote him once in a while in difficult situations :) Some people thought it was just a lie coz any business is after profit afterall, but I look at it differently and I hope this little voice won't die, working hard on it.

Remember I introduced nLostnFound shop a while ago? I've finally come into agreement with the owner to create a corner with a little more content than just focus on selling products. The first implementation will be something related to missal books and bakerlite, hopefully we will set up the shelf in Times Square city'super right after I come back from Shanghai in July. Every antique item is hand picked by the owner and we hope we can share the stories we know about these objects to people visiting.

Smartphone photography is definitely the future, probably 95% of us will not carry a modern day camera 95% of the time, besides Apple just patented a changeable lens phone system, that tells a lot about our future too. Smartphone photography gadgets are popping up here and there, just that it is not yet a viable business for many. Like the iPhone cases ecosystem, one great innovation will change everything. Anyway, we have so many photos we take everyday, we never print them out anymore. So we worked with Fotomax to offer printing service for smartphone photos, after 2 months of testing and procrastination, finally it is moving forward, customer can now print square photos, make Instagram photo stickers and photo books. This is a comparison of their booth revamp (in Harbour City city'super) simulation vs. the actual outcome, proud to be able to faciliate ideas into reality. If you can visualize your ideas, making it happen is just a matter of gathering all necessary elements. I hope I'm not sounding too arrogant here.

Last week a colleague of mine thought I knew someone who could fix a phone, but I don't, so I took the challenge myself. Err, not an iPhone but a retro rotary one with a slightly improved 1970s circuit board. Everything worked except the unbearable noise on the speaker rendering conversation impossible. First I thought it was a problem with the phone line plugging into an ADSL broadband line so the separator screwed up, but after checking with the phone company that was not the case. So I picked up my screw driver and tempered with every circuit route inside with a magnifier. Turned out it was caused by a poor circuit board layout design, there is this one place where a screw is supposed to fix the board onto the phone but the screw was not insulated by eyelets, so the circuit was damaged, not enough electricity could pass through at that point. A simple bypass using wire fixed the phone. I had so much fun so instead of charging her HK$200 to fix a HK$165 phone, I wavied it :P Like how I used to play with making Gundam models, it is tremenduous fun to isolate problems and create solutions for the fun of it. Great education, are kids exposed to these experience these days? Probably not from the system.

So now the topic changed to kids. This is an evil kid, on the surface :) My niece is actually a super cute kid with a lot of smile and very talkative. She was just playing a disturbed look with my fisheye lens, don't worry we are good. Her dad my little brother is a hard working architect building schools. We just had a family gathering in this Dragon Boat festival.

And a week ago, we had a gathering of 14 kids on a squid hunting boat trip on a rainy day. We got nothing, not even one squid, and it was funny that all their energy were used up in anticipating and preparation so the boat trip was like the last stop of a great hang out :)

Watching them all together was a bit sentimental, they were kindergarten friends, some went to other schools some stayed and more of them will definitely scatter. Where are my kindergarten friends? They were so close to me and we are no longer in touch, we don't even remember each other's name anymore. This generation of kids is probably the best connected kids ever found on earth, at least their parents have facebook. I wondered, when we/they look back in 14 years, how will they feel about this video and their time spent together? Well, in our next gathering, I'm gonna ban iPhones and iPads, they are evil products in this type of gathering.

June 12, 2012

Today one of my colleagues dropped a few tears feeling overwhelmed by all those nonsense requests from here and there and wondered what management really wants from a buyer. I couldn't offer help from my beloved GTD practise at that moment, but it is the only way we can manage things in this so called multi-tasking world.

Yes it is a myth, no soul can do multi-tasking, it is not the right term to describe it afterall. You can only spend highly focused small chunks of time (even stealing time) and still be organized if you have a principle to follow. The principle for me is much like a processor cycling metaphor, with a meta mind behind directing traffic.

So many seeds I've sown moments after moments. If I were not able to have a meta mind governing traffic I would lose my mind. One seed sown 2 years ago was a GTD leather tab thingie using binder clip and scrap leather, upon repeated usage I think it is the right time for sharing it with the world. Just because I finally found a good manufacturer. Still unclear of setting up an online shop, payment or logistics, but I'm all for it. Stay tuned.

I've given up the idea of spending an extensive period of time for one activity for a long while, coz it is a luxury. Without sacrificing quality, the only way is to make them into small projects, one step at a time. So I got to spend these small chunks of time for things I like, including photography. An hour or two with my belowed Voigtlander R4A and Turtleback iPhone jacket etc.

Energy is another matter, depleted easily if it were only a matter of corporeal property. If you have that spirit, you can always find chances to deplete the way you want it. Hair cut on Sunday, Jerry Liu the stylist told me about his sister's obsession with a pair of HK$30K hair scissors. Gotta see it in person, maybe an interview.

I've declined an invitation to my very own event in the Traveler's Factory store in Tokyo because of tight schedule, better wait when my own stuffs are ready in time. But I'm very happy that somehow my gathering with famous Japanese photographer Ryu Itsuki san in the Traveler's Factory shop spinned off a nice interesting small collaboration project there. The world is small and only if you can take advantage of connections.

Lastly, I'm enjoying a little craft projects here and there, this one being customizing a few Traveler's Notebooks for our stores to display, showing customers how they can also do their own customization using lamination sheets from Japan. 6 more copies to go but I can take the time.

Walter Isaacson: Steve JobsLove hearing the stories all over again, some of them especially what happened in the past few years are new to me. Most importantly it is a closer portrait of Steve than all other books about him. Isaacson recorded audios during his interview with Steve, check out 60 minutes special and you will hear Steve's own voice. RIP Steve. (****)